Just Gotta Let It Go
by Priestess Aishisu
Summary: TO BE DELETED. CAN BE FOUND UNDER MY NEW USERNAME PRIESTESS ADULARIA (After three-day waiting period)
1. Getting Ready For School

Priestess Aishisu: Hmm…let's see what's next on my list of plotbunnies…::Eyes bug out:: A Harry Potter/Yu-Gi-Oh crossover?  
Am I really planning to do something that cliché? There must be a hundred, and most are better than anything I'll ever write!  
Wait a minute…::Reads all the twists I planned so it isn't just another run-of-the-mill crossover:: Hmm…I guess it could work…  
Now, I haven't read Harry Potter in a while (five was such a huge disappointment) so just try and bear with me here, all right?  
Also, in this version, five didn't happen (I liked Sirius!) so they're fifth-years. And that means it takes place a year after Battle City.  
On with the fanfiction!

«§¥§»

"Malik!"

A tanned boy with lilac eyes and silky almost-white hair blinked as he got out of bed. "What is it, Isis?" he called to his elder sister.

"Remember that school of magic I told you I had been hired to teach divination at because the former teacher got kicked out for predicting the death of a student every year?" asked his sister, a lovely curvaceous girl with deep blue eyes and long black hair.

"Yeah, I seem to recall something like that…" he muttered sleepily. He never forgot _anything _when he was awake, but when he was half-asleep he couldn't remember his own name.

"Here."

He blinked, suddenly wide awake as she handed him a thick envelope. In an emerald scrawl, it read his name, address, and…

"_The ridiculously neat room with the huge windows?"_ he read, turning it over to see a wax seal. "What kind of person writes that?"

He broke the seal.

"_Mister Ishtal,_ _we understand you and your friends should be too old to begin schooling, but due to the circumstances we will overlook your ages and_…_"_ he read the rest in a mutter, then looked up at Isis.

"I'm going to school."

«§¥§»

**Is this such a good idea?** wondered Yami no Bakura from the back of Ryou's mind.

"It's a school," Ryou replied, shaking out his white hair. "A place to learn how to control and use your magic! What could be bad about that?"

**I have lived for 3571 years, I think I _know_ how to control my powers!** the former King of Thieves replied indignantly. **Besides, they may have heard of me!**

"Look, I hear the History of Magics teacher is an old dud," he replied.

**Oh? And how would you know, exactly?**

"I've read about the place," Ryou replied.

**Ryou, my dear, you are speaking of _fiction,_** **not reality. Those stories are rarely truthful, I for one should know.**

Ryou's interest was immediately piqued, but he knew Bakura would be…upset, to say the least…if he bugged him. "Well, at least _some_ of it may be accurate," he tried, but was replied with only a disgruntled **hmph!** and his darker half retreating to his soul room.

«§¥§»

**A place to** **learn** **about magic?**

Yugi smiled—as he'd hoped, his darker half was interested. "Yes, a place to learn about magic." He looked around, grinning at the place known as Diagon Alley. "Wow, this place is _amazing."_

"Hey, check out the hair! I wish I knew that kind of magic!"

"And look how **short** he is? Why's he walking around all alone?"

Yugi's smile vanished, and he had to tamp down hard on his darker half to keep him from sending whoever had mentioned his hair and height to the Shadow Realm.

"Hey, shortie! Are you a new student at Hogwarts?"

With a barely-hidden scowl, Yugi turned to see a freckled boy with red hair. "Yes, as a matter of fact I am. My name is Yugi Mutou, and I'm _fifteen."_

The boy looked surprised. "So you're a midget, then?"

"Yes, I'm a midget, now drop it," he said with unusual temper. "The only reason I wasn't here sooner was because I didn't gain my powers until a year ago."

"Hey, hey, Lightning! No harm meant. I'm Ron, by the way. Ronald Weasly. Wunnu be pals?"

His kind nature making it impossible for him not to smile, Yugi shook his hand. "That would be nice. But…would you please not call me Lightning?"

«§¥§»

Seto Kaiba was scowling as the strange man with large, pale eyes tried to find a wand for him. Until a few months ago, he had gone against all proof and refused to believe in magic.

But then he started shooting lightning, and decided to forget his pride just once to keep himself alive.

"How about this? Ash, eleven inches, supple, contains one unicorn hair."

Kaiba scowled. While he wasn't about to use something with…basilisk liver inside it, he didn't need to know the length of whatever he was being handed—or if it was springy, whippy, pliable, or anything else!

Nonetheless, he waved it. A desk blew up.

"Well, that isn't right…"

"Good lord man, don't you have anything with _dragon_ in it? I happen to prefer dragons to unicorns and phoenixes, you know!"

Ollivander blinked at him. "Humph. It's rare that the wizard chooses what to use, but if you insist…" he picked out another box. "Maple and dragon heartstring, twelve inches, good for channeling one's personal energy, swishy."

"I don't care," he muttered under his breath, grabbing the wand. It felt warm in his hands. He waved it, and a shower of blue and silver sparks cascaded out.

Ollivander clapped. "Bravo man!" he said, wrapping it. "Well, well…how interesting…you did know what was right for you…hmm…"

"Whatever," hissed Kaiba, handing him his seven gold Galleons and grabbing the wand. He wanted to get the Hell out of there!

«§¥§»

Bakura's eyes narrowed as he noticed a familiar figure.

Weaving in and out of the crowd, somehow managing not to jar the white kitten he'd bought or any of his supplies (he himself had been impressed that the money he'd stolen in the past had somehow been turned into wizarding money) he soon found himself standing right in front of Malik Ishtal.

"Hello."

The Egyptian jumped at least a foot before recognizing the voice and scowling at the white-haired thief. "Yami no Bakura, if you _ever_ do that again I'm going to take this mahogany wand and shove it—" Bakura had the foresight to cover his mouth before he could continue.

"Malik? Shut. Up. What are you doing in England, anyway?"

Malik scowled at Bakura's rudeness and tried to make a snappy retort—but, seeing as how the Spirit's deceptively delicate hand still covered his mouth, he had to be content with showing him the letter.

"Humph," Bakura remarked, removing a hand. "You, too, huh?"

"Yes, me too. Isis is the new divination teacher, so they made a 'special case' for me or something. I'm not sure, and frankly, I don't give a damn."

"Well, it couldn't have had that much to do with Isis," he replied, showing him his own letter. Malik opened it and saw that it was almost identical to his.

"Oh, fuck," Bakura said suddenly, either reading his mind or guessing. "If you're here, and I'm here, then that means—"

"Oh, lord, please no." They turned to see a familiar man with long brown hair, deep blue eyes, and a scowl. "If you're here then that means that Yugi is, too."

"You stole what I was going to say, except I was going to say 'the Pharaoh,'" Bakura replied. "And I thought you didn't believe in magic."

"I had to prioritize," Kaiba replied. "My pride or my life." Seeing their bewildered expressions, he raised decided to illustrate his point: He raised a hand and pictured Yugi. Immediately, glints of white lightning rippled in the air around him.

"You have good priorities," said Malik, eyebrow twitching slightly. "You think they're going to mind that one of my robes are purple instead of black? I couldn't afford to buy three when I had one already."

"I'm sure it's fine," Kaiba replied, frowning slightly. "You're lucky to be Egyptian—you're not embarrassed by wearing a dress."

"You wore a dress in Egypt, too," Bakura replied. "Just a blue one. I usually wore a skirty thing and these coats, but the Pharaoh wore a dress, too."

"Speak of the devil," muttered Kaiba, and they spun around to see what he was talking about.

Yugi, a red-haired boy, a black-haired boy, and a brown-haired girl were talking about…something or another. Suddenly the redhead pointed to them and muttered something which made Yugi whirl around.

"Oh. No." said Yu-Gi-Oh, appearing out of nowhere—though only they noticed, of course. He strode forward and placed his hands on his leather-clad hips.

"_Tell_ me I'm dreaming. Not **you** again!" This comment was obviously directed towards Bakura, who he glared at pointedly.

"Nice to see you again too, your highness," Bakura replied, barely hiding a smirk as he gave a little mock-bow that made Yu-Gi-Oh's teeth gnash.

"Highness?" the girl asked, walking up from behind them. She had a slightly loud voice, and was shorter than both Bakura and Kaiba (Bakura was five feet eleven inches, Kaiba was six feet, but Bakura looked a bit taller because of his hair)

"Why are you calling Lightning 'your highness'?" chimed the redheaded boy. He was also shorter (who wasn't?) and a sprinkling of freckles dusted his face.

"I told you not to call me Lightning!" Yugi cried before turning back into Yu-Gi-Oh.

"Nice to see you," he snarled at Bakura, obviously having no stronger urge than to strangle him. "Killed any innocents lately?"

"If you must know, I've sworn off on that," he replied mildly. "Not like **you." **

"You? Give up **murdering?** Ha! Either it's a Ra-fucking miracle or you're a liar—which we all are already aware that you **are." **

"Go to hell."

"Bite me."

"Don't tempt me."

The three who had been with Yu-Gi-Oh looked from one spirit to another, clearly bewildered. Kaiba shook his head, rolling his eyes.

"_There_ you are!"

Kaiba made a huge show of groaning before turning to face Isis. She was wearing a white silk dress with one flowing off-the-shoulder sleeve. It dipped gently from the shoulder of the sleeved arm to the other shoulder, so the other arm was completely bare (I have a dress like this, only light blue. It's really pretty)

Isis predictably didn't seem surprised to see any of them, but Yu-Gi-Oh did seem surprised to see her. (Kaiba was too irritated to be surprised, Malik obviously knew, Bakura had been told by Malik, and the other three didn't know who she was) " Isis?" he asked. "Why are you here?"

"I'm the new Divination teacher, of course," Isis replied with a small smile. "What should I have been? Magical History already had a teacher."

Walking up to Isis, the girl stuck out her hand. "I'm Hermione Granger. I'm a student at Hogwarts, and I'm glad somebody replaced that old bat."

Ron and his friend exchanged impressed looks—they still hadn't gotten used to Hermione insulting any teacher, even Miss Trelawney. Then Ron asked, "Are you really a psychic, or just faking it?"

"Your name is Ron Weasly. You're fifteen years old, you come from a poor wizard family of seven, your father is obsessed with 'Muggles'—which is what a wizard calls a human. You used to have a pet rat, but it turned out to be an evil sorcerer. Your best friend is Harry Potter, and you're in love with—"

"All right, all right! I'm a believer, really! Please stop!"

Isis permitted herself a serene little half-smile. "I thought so."

«§¥§»

Priestess Aishisu: That was really just an introduction. The real plot begins in the next chapter, when they actually go to Hogwarts! Now, let's have a vote on pairings!

Option One:

Kaiba/Bakura  
Yu-Gi-Oh/Malik  
Ryou/Yugi

Option Two:

Yu-Gi-Oh/Bakura  
Malik/Ryou  
Kaiba/Yugi

Also, should Hermione be with Ron or Harry, or should it be a triangle? And if so, who should win eventually?


	2. The Sorting Hat

Priestess Aishisu: This may be bad, because I just got knew contacts and they really burn—so I had to write this with my eyes shut most of the time. So that's why it sucks so badly.

«§¥§»

"Well," Dumbledore said. "I know the year hasn't started—we don't even have a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, everybody thinks the job is cursed—but since it is very rare that anyone starts as a fifth year when they haven't even taken first grade, we need to put you in a house right away."

"I've never been to a school before," admitted Malik. "And our powers are all really ancient—not like the kind you people learn."

"I will not lie," Dumbledore said gravely. "These are dangerous times in the magical world. There is an epic battle occurring between good and evil. You might be able to avoid getting involved in it if you stay away, but having sensed the extent of your powers I do not feel it likely." He sighed.

"There are those who would exploit your magical abilities for their own use. But I can promise you safety at my school, as well as a chance to better yourself. The magic you would learn at Hogwarts would be well worth the effort."

"Are we being recruited for something?" asked the ever-suspicious Kaiba. "Because I've had enough 'battles against evil' to last me two lifetimes and then some."

"Rest assured that you are not being 'recruited,'" Dumbledore replied. "In fact, one of my most important hopes is that you are kept out of this war for as long as possible."

"I don't care about all that crap, but I am not putting that thing on my head!" Yu-Gi-Oh yelped, pointing at the tattered hat that had just finished _singing_. "It's ugly! And it…it **talks!"**

Ignoring him, Minerva McGonagall said, "Mister Bakura, would you go first."

"Gladly," he replied, giving Yu-Gi-Oh a look which clearly said _wimp._ He walked forward and put the hat on his head, shutting down his mind…just in case the hat was a blabbermouth.

After a long, long silence, the hat groaned, _"I don't know what to do. He could go anywhere! The guy has the smarts, the bravery, the ambitious cunning_…_"_ there was a pause. _"He's hiding something." _

"Ridiculous," she replied with a frown, waving her wand.

Immediately, a blaze of white light slammed everybody away from him. Bakura blinked, surprised, and without realizing it let his guard down.

A yelp burst from the tear that was the hat's mouth. _"Why are you sending him to school? There is little or nothing we can teach him that he doesn't know already! Looks like I found ourselves our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher!"_

**_"What?!"_ **four voices shouted at once.

Snape went first "That old hat is losing its touch. He's a child!"

"I am **not!"** Bakura replied, and covered his mouth.

"Well, how old are you?"

He flushed slightly—unnoticeable on anyone else, but not on somebody whose hair was so pale—and mumbled something incoherent.

**"Three thousand five hundred eighty**-**six years!?"** yelled Professor McGonagall, before somehow managing to compose herself.

Her cheeks were flushed, her bun coming unraveled and falling from her hat, her breathing harsh and labored, but she did manage to speak calmly. "Well, it seems that you most certainly are _not_ a child. Mr. Mutou, why don't you go while we discuss this?"

"I refuse to learn about the darkness from him!" Yu-Gi-Oh protested, forgetting his fear and shoving the hat down over his huge head of hair. "He **is** the darkness!"

The Sorting Hat put all of them in Gryffindor, though it took at least an hour on Kaiba and spent about ten minutes on Malik.

"All right," McGonagall announced. "Bakura will be the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher for Hogwarts. He will also use the Time Glass to also visit two classes per day, though he won't act as a student—that will probably make other students nervous."

"I'll be nervous no matter what," Yu-Gi-Oh snarled out, though he knew the 'attending' was probably for Ryou's sake. "You expect _me_ to be taught by **him?"**

"Well, I'm not that happy about it either, but at least I'll only have two classes with you per day instead of every class," Bakura retorted. "Besides, even you will agree that no one knows more about the Dark Arts than I do!"

Yu-Gi-Oh's fists clenched and unclenched. He shook his head, desperate, disbelieving. "That…That's…You'll probably eat the souls of your students!"

"I will _not!"_ Bakura cried.

**"Enough!"** bellowed McGonagall. "I do not believe there is anything wrong with having him be a teacher, not if he knows so much. We need a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, and he cannot be that much worse than some teachers we have had here!"

Yu-Gi-Oh looked like he wanted to scream. But, red and angry, he snarled between clenched teeth, "very well." Then, he turned and walked out of the room.

«§¥§»

A pale thin man with a hideous inhuman face paced across the dusty floor of an abandoned old house, the fire in a small grate casting shadows across the room.

At the table in a corner, a short stout man flipped through the pages of a huge and clearly ancient book. Several other volumes were stacked next to him. A hand which gleamed silver rapidly flipped the pages as he skimmed over the words.

Both men were dressed in long black robes.

"Have you found nothing yet, Wormtail?" came an eerily frigid voice from the first man. "My patience is growing thin."

"I…I am looking, milord," came the stuttering reply of the one known as Wormtail. "I've found many items, but nothing which seems as if it would do you any good."

"Well, look harder!" he snarled. "No modern magic will get me revenge on Hogwarts, and my old tricks are useless."

"Well…I might have found something…"

"What?" the man replied, more impatient than curious. He seemed to have little or no faith in his sniveling subordinate.

"It's here in 'Histories of Ancient Magics.' They are seven Egyptian artifacts known as the Millennium items. They contain the forces of darkness and have various powers. I am uncertain if they are real, but they would be a valuable asset if they would."

"Well, what sort of powers to the items have?"

"It depends on the item. One contains the spirit of an undefeatable strategist. Another contains the soul of the legendary Thief King Touzoku Ou Bakura. One has the power to see the future, another can read minds, and another can control a person's thoughts and actions. One can judge the heart and soul, and yet another allows you to gain access to a person's mind."

"Hmm…" the man replied, interested now. "So, assuming these items do exist, where can they be found?"

" Egypt, milord. The book has little information about their exact location, and if they are in the hands of their fated possessors—the reincarnated forms of the Items' true owners—they could be anywhere."

"I have a feeling, Wormtail. I am almost certain that they do exist. Spread the word among my Death Eaters. I want those items."

«§¥§»

After all the kids had entered the Great Hall, Dumbledore stood up.

"This is…a particularly unusual year. Considering the…**ahem**…events…of last year, I am sure none of you will be particularly surprised. Now, we have two new teachers, and three rather…unusual students. Mr. Mutou, Mr. Kaiba, Mr. Ishtal, will you come up?"

Yu-Gi-Oh and Kaiba were scowling, Malik looked a bit nervous but a bit excited, and they all walked up to the front of the room.

"Yugi Mutou, Seto Kaiba, and Malik Ishtal are new students from Egypt and Japan, but they will be starting out as 5th years in Gryffindor. They have all had prior learning, from different but similar sources. Our new teachers are from the same places. First is Isis Ishtal, our new Divination teacher."

Most of the students who had had Professor Trelawney (except the very few imbeciles who had actually liked her) cheered loudly that she was gone. Most of the guys whistled.

"Next is Ryou Bakura, our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."

Girls swooned, some guys complained that he was too young to be anybody's teacher, and one person shrieked, "You're a dead man!"

Bakura looked strait at him, flashed what could very possibly be one of the world's eeriest smiles, and replied sweetly, "and your point is?"

The one who had shrieked shut up immediately.

"Mr. Bakura will be attending classes as well as taking them, though less as a student and more as an…assistant. In spite of your beliefs, he is _not_ too young, and neither is Mr. Mutou."

"We're probably the oldest ones here," muttered Yu-Gi-Oh, and Bakura nodded. Kaiba and Malik were glad that they were neither midgets nor teachers nor ancient spirits.

Then the hat began its song, and they sat down.

«§¥§»

Yu-Gi-Oh, Kaiba, and Malik gaped along with the Muggle-born first-years as food appeared on the golden platters. More food than most of them (except Kaiba and Yu-Gi-Oh) had ever seen.

Every kind of roast, (roast hare, roast pheasant, roast bore, and more) every kind of bread, (round loves and long ones, hard rolls and soft, seeded and plain), every kind of fish and vegetable and fruit and everything, enough for everyone in the school.

They started eating hungrily, but they didn't have long to eat before Draco Malfoy walked up to the Gryffindor table with Crabbe and Goyle behind him. "Well, well, well," he sneered. "What's a ten-year-old with bad hair doing with the fifth-years?"

Yu-Gi-Oh started sawing at his chicken instead of slicing it, eyes narrowed with rage, but he didn't say anything because Yugi had threatened to stop dueling if he caused harm to anyone else—though he said that might make an exception if they were a demon with, like, glowing blood-red eyes or something.

Lifting an eyebrow, Kaiba asked, "Who's the hotshot?"

Lifting his chin, he replied, "Draco Malfoy II, son of Lucius Malfoy, descendant of the great Akefia Touzoku Ou Bakura."

"Huh?" was Kaiba's only reply, though he noticed both Malik and Yu-Gi-Oh tense up. Hermione's eyes went wide and her hand flew to her mouth, causing Harry and Ron to look at her curiously.

Sneering, Malfoy replied, "I don't expect a soaring toothpick with big ears and long hair to know about the great King of Thieves."

That did it. Kaiba drew to his full height—which towered above pretty much everybody else at this point. Eyes narrowed, the air around him rippling with tiny sparks of silvery-blue lightning, he asked, "Do you know who I am?"

"A Muggle inventor with a bad reputation," Malfoy sneered, extracting a wand from his robes and pointing it at him in what should have been a threatening gesture. "No problem for me."

Without thinking, Kaiba pointed an angry finger at him. A tiny, glittering ball of blazing white lightning shot out at Malfoy.

Screaming loud enough for everybody to hear, Malfoy tumbled backwards. Crabbe and Goyle stepped forward, but a voice stopped them.

"What is going on here?"

They turned to see—much to Yu-Gi-Oh's dismay—none other than Bakura. His eyes were narrowed, hands on his hips, lips pressed together.

All in all, he wasn't very happy.

"It wouldn't do to be losing points so soon, would it?" though he was speaking to Malfoy and Kaiba, his glare was directed at Yu-Gi-Oh (surprise, surprise)

"He hurt me, Professor," Malfoy simpered, making Harry and Ron cringe in disgust. "He shot some weird silvery bluish lightning at me, completely unprovoked."

"That isn't true!" cried Harry.

"Yeah," agreed Ron. "He called Kaiba a big-eared toothpick with a bad reputation. He also said that he was descended from some guy named A-kef-ah Too-zoo-key-oh…whoever that is…"

"Ah-kef-e-ah Toe-zoe-koo-oh," Malfoy corrected primly, and smirked at Bakura's reaction.

The near-albino had gone as white as his hair, stiff as a board, eyes huge. Then his eyes narrowed and his fists clenched. "You expect me to believe that? He died without a single relative—no parents, no friends, no lovers, no nothing. How can you be his descendant? You don't even **look** like him!"

Malfoy's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "How would you know? Descriptions vary from a hideous monster to the most beautiful being on Earth! The only thing everybody agreed on was that his hair was—"

"White?" Bakura interrupted, tugging a pale lock of his own hair. "One of the few things they said about him that was actually right."

Then he turned and sauntered off, leaving an entire table (and Malfoy) speechless and quite shaken. (Crabbe and Goyle hardly spoke anyway)

Then, drawing himself up with a sneer, Malfoy turned and sashayed back to his table. For a moment Crabbe and Goyle stood, disoriented, before shrugging and following him.

"Is Bakura he really a descendant of Akefia Touzoku Ou?" whispered Hermione, eyes huge. "They have the same last name…"

Yu-Gi-Oh snorted into his food. "Oh, he's much more than a descendant," he muttered, earning stares from Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

"You said that **aloud,** you idiot!" cried Kaiba, loud enough for the entire room to hear. Yu-Gi-Oh had the decency to look embarrassed.

"Umm…Oops?"

Hermione was about to ask another question, but Yu-Gi-Oh interrupted, "So, what were these…points…he was talking about?"

"Well, it's sort of a contest," Harry explained, and Malik stifled a groan at the annoyingly familiar gleam in Kaiba and Yu-Gi-Oh's eyes at the word 'contest.'

"Teachers, prefects, and head students can give and take 'points' from each house—you know: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin. At the end-of-the-year banquet, the winning house is awarded the House Cup. Before we came in, Slytherin won the House Cup for four years. But since Harry, Ron, and I came in, we have yet to lose once."

"And you aren't going to start this year!" Kaiba said determinedly as dessert appeared. "Not if I can help it. And I never lose!"

"Don't worry," said Yu-Gi-Oh. "Maybe **he** has, but I'm not called the King of Games for nothing!"

"Don't ask," Malik suggested. "Believe me, it's a very bad idea." Ron, Harry, and Hermione regarded two pairs of similarly glinting eyes—one pair blue, one pair eerily red. An unspoken decision was reached to do the smart thing and listen.

"So, what's this house thing? We were sorted, but it took forever—especially for Kaiba."

"Each house has its own reputation," Ron replied. "Gryffindors are pretty much known for courage. Ravenclaws are known for wisdom. The Slytherins are the power-hungry jerks. And the Hufflepuffs are everybody else—they're hard workers, though they also tend to be pushovers."

"Ron!" cried Hermione. "It's not fair to make those kinds of generalizations."

"Well, it's true," Ron replied, putting his hands up defensively. "After all, the Slytherins are the ones who turned to the Dark Arts."

"Dark Arts?" Malik repeated. "Bakura is teaching defense against them, and even Yu-Gi-Oh agrees that no one could so better, but I don't really get it."

"Oh, you know," Ron replied with a casual wave of his hand. "The bad guys, bent on destruction and world domination and all that crap."

_Been there,_ _done that._

"All I know is that that hat is a smart-aleck. I'm fine about the regal and confident part, but I am neither cocky nor moody!"

**Yes,** **you are. **

The words drifted into his mind with little or no warning. His head snapped up and he glared angrily at the teacher's table, where Bakura was watching him with those eerie eyes. He glared at him, wondering how even he could possibly hear them from all the way over there.

Narrowing his eyes, he noticed Bakura's long delicate fingers were running through the soft white fur of a kitten. His plate was empty, and he could guess what Bakura had been eating.

Suddenly someone screamed. Yu-Gi-Oh's eyes jerked away from Bakura to see dozens of pale apparitions floating through the air.

Ron, Harry, and Bakura each started conversing with one ghost or another—and, after the initial shock, none of them did too bad. Yu-Gi-Oh and Bakura were dead, after all—they had enough in common with these see-through beings with their large, haunted eyes.

Overall, the ghosts didn't have much effect, other than the initial shock and the fact that Yu-Gi-Oh could no longer make eye contact with Bakura—he seemed very popular among the ghosts.

"Would you guys happen to know how far away from the castle you have to be for electronic equipment to work?" Kaiba asked, stealing Yu-Gi-Oh's question.

"Farther than you're allowed to go," Ron replied.

Hermione, of course, had more info to provide. "Technology gets fried if you try to use it here. You'd have to go about five or ten miles out at least before you are far enough away from the magic of Hogwarts and Hogsmeade for electronics to work. You could get in big trouble and it's not worth the effort."

**Yes it is!** argued Yu-Gi-Oh, though not aloud. **We have the Duel Disks, it's a waste not to use them! **

** _You_** _have the Duel Disk,_> Yugi replied. _You don't know that anybody else does!_>

**A duelist must always be prepared** he retorted. **Besides, why would Kaiba have even _asked_ if he didn't have his?**

_Not that a duel with Kaiba wouldn't be fun, as long as no one gets hurt, but we'll worry about it later. We aren't walking ten miles, and you aren't using Shadow Magic. Maybe Bakura will be willing to duel you with it later, but_ _you aren't using it on Kaiba_>

Yu-Gi-Oh pouted and retreated to his soul room, leaving Yugi at the table. Kaiba was the only one who noticed the change—well, so did Bakura, but he was busy discussing myths with the ghosts of two philosophers to really pay much attention.

Reaching into his robes as dinner vanished and dessert appeared, he extracted his wand and looked at it. Yu-Gi-Oh had done the finding, and had ended up with a wand of cherry wood with a phoenix feather at its core.

"Did yours have a phoenix feather at the core, too?" asked Malik, extracting one made of ebony. It was a bit longer than Yu-Gi-Oh's—but then he was taller, which meant he had longer arms.

"Yes," Yugi replied. Glancing at Kaiba, who was currently eating a very large piece of pie, he asked, "And let me guess, dragon heartstring."

Kaiba nodded and smirked slightly. "I knew it would be that the minute he said it. What I want to know is why that imbecile insisted upon describing it so much."

"Yeah. He told me mine was 'springy,' and good for transfiguration" he replied, of course meaning Ollivander told Yu-Gi-Oh and Yu-Gi-Oh told him.

"'Pliable,' and good for weather magic," confirmed Malik, picking up a small tart and tasting it. Smilign, he took another.

"'Supple' and good for channeling one's personal energy. So I guess that means I'll be conjuring dragons and electricity."

"And Ryou told me **he"**—Malik accented the 'he' so they knew which 'he' he was talking about—"got one of silver birch, whippy, and so ancient the guy didn't even remember what was in it. Hair of a god or demon, or something."

"His yami?" Kaiba asked, speaking in Japanese so the others wouldn't understand. Malik snickered. Inside Yugi's head, Yu-Gi-Oh snickered as well, but Yugi felt it would be rude if he did the same.

People began to disperse as Dumbledore dismissed them all. "Come on Ron, we're prefects now, we have to show the first years to the homeroom."

"Oh, yeah…" muttered Ron, not seeming particularly thrilled about this. "Oi, midgets."

"Hey!" Yugi (and probably Yu-Gi-Oh as well) glared at him. "I resent that!"

"Sorry, Lightning."

**"I** **told you not to call me that!" **

"Oh yeah. First years this way please. Follow me."

"Mind if we follow too?" Yugi asked, happy again in spite of Yu-Gi-Oh's mental plans of what he would do if they were called 'Lightning' one more time. "We're new here, so we don't know where to go either."

Ron shrugged. "Why ask, you're going to do it anyway."

He and Hermione got the first years sorted out and took them to the Gryffindor common room. Malik almost cracked a rib trying to keep from laughing at the name ('dragon liver') and Kaiba's rather green face upon hearing it.

Yugi had to take control quickly, because Yu-Gi-Oh had no reason to keep from laughing—being a spirit, he had no reason to fear electrocution.

Goodnights were pretty rushed and every head which hit the pillow was immediately a sleeping one—food had made the teens tired, and besides, none of them wanted to be half-asleep the next day.

Least of all Yu-Gi-Oh, who was going to be in a class taught by his worst enemy.


	3. The First Day of School

"See?" Harry said. "What did I tell you? Snape is a monster."

"You said it," Yu-Gi-Oh agreed, and Kaiba rolled his eyes.

"I didn't like him either, but seriously! What was with that speech about why it was immoral to use the bandage of an Egyptian mummy to make a potion for second sight?"

"That could have been _me!"_ he replied, catching himself just in time to use Japanese—the last thing anybody needed to know was that he wasn't human.

Malik smirked. "Hey, I hated him too, but _I_ managed to get on his good side."

"He doesn't have a good side!" Ron protested. "I think the only reason he liked you was because your family has been practicing magic for millenniums—is that true, by the way?"

"Yup. Since the days of the Pharaohs. I've been learning so much about Egyptian history it's painful." For a moment, a shadow crossed over his lilac eyes, but it faded.

"Well, it explains how you and Yugi knew so much in Ancient Ruins," Hermione remarked. "Though it wasn't very nice of you, Yugi, to tell the teacher that her translation of the scrolls in the Tower of Horus was a bunch of crackpot garbage."

"Well, it was," Yu-Gi-Oh protested.

Ron and Harry hadn't taken Ancient Ruins, so they had no idea what was going on. Kaiba didn't either—he had been pruning Snapdragons in Herbology class—but he didn't doubt that Yu-Gi-Oh would say something like that—Yugi wouldn't, but Yu-Gi-Oh would.

"Oh, look," said Ron suddenly. "It's the Defense Against the Dark Arts class."

Yu-Gi-Oh glanced at the class they were passing. Older kids were streaming out, looking thrilled and a bit freaked out. Among them were the twins—Fred and George—and their friend Lee. "Wow!" cried Fred, looking stunned. "He's amazing!"

"Better than Mad-Eye," Lee agreed. "He must have had a lot of experience with the Dark Arts."

"You don't know how right you are," muttered Yu-Gi-Oh, causing Kaiba to elbow him in the rib—and it was no gentle nudge.

"I hope he doesn't end up dying, getting his memory erased, or turning out to be a spy or a werewolf," said George. "That would be a real shame."

"Trust me, he's a lot worse than a werewolf," muttered Yu-Gi-Oh, but he shut up when Kaiba's hands started blazing silver.

Ron checked his schedule and grinned. "I have him in one period!"

Yu-Gi-Oh looked at his paper. "Same here," he groused, sounding much less enthusiastic than Ron.

"Great. Meanwhile, me and Hermione will be in History of Magic," said Harry with a scowl.

"Tough break," said Lee. "You're going to be in the most boring class while they're in the best class Hogwarts ever had!"

"I doubt that highly," muttered Yu-Gi-Oh, and now Kaiba kicked him. "Cut it out!"

"I have Divination next," said Malik. "I hope Isis goes easy on me, I am her little brother after all…"

"As long as they replaced that awful woman," said Hermione. "She doesn't know what she's doing! Makes it up as she goes along."

"Plus every year she predicts Harry's death," Ron agreed. "This Isis lady can't be any worse."

"Oh, she's not," replied Malik. "She really is psychic, believe me. But," he turned to Harry, "Why is it you she decided is going to die?"

"Yeah, why not Malfoy?" asked Kaiba with a sneer. "If Isis predicted his death, I would start planning the party immediately."

"For one, Malfoy isn't in Divination, so she can't pick on him," Hermione answered, not noticing Malik and Yu-Gi-Oh's expressions at Kaiba's open admittance at believing in Isis's powers. "For another, I'm sure she's just looking for publicity. She'd be renowned as a true seer if Harry Potter died and she predicted it."

"What's the big deal about him?" Malik asked.

"You don't know?" Hermione asked, clearly shocked. "You've certainly been sheltered from the magical world."

"This one, anyway," Malik muttered under his breath.

"What was that?"

"Oh, nothing. Continue."

"Did any of you read about the dark times about fifteen years ago? And a very dark wizard, known most commonly as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named or You- Know-Who?"

Hermione waited for a reaction, but they all looked blank. "Harry, would you prefer to explain it? It is your story."

"I guess so," Harry mumbled. "When I was a baby, the dark wizard Voldemort—most don't like hearing his name," he explained, frowning at Ron's horrified expression.

"Anyway, Voldemort came to my mother's home and used magic to kill her—my dad was already dead. He tried to kill me, and it backfired on him because of my mother. He disappeared for a while and everyone thought it was the end of the dark times. So I was made famous by something I had no control over. And Voldemort has been popping up lately, so I didn't really defeat him, but I still get all the attention."

"That was…pretty…blunt, Harry," Hermione remarked, eyebrows lifted.

"Whatever," he replied, clearly not wanting to continue their discussion. "Who else has Care of Magical Creatures next?"

"Me."

"Me."

"Me."

"Me."

Everybody except Malik, who as I mentioned was in Divination.

"And the Slytherins will probably be there, too," said Ron with a scowl. "We always have Potions and Care of Magical Creatures with them, and sometimes other classes."

As he had predicted, Slytherins were there as well. "Gather 'round," everybody!" said Hagrid happily. "Had ter' get special permission from the headmaster for these, but it's gunnu be worth it! Yer in for a real treat!"

"Looks like the old bat's prediction might come true after all," muttered Ron, perking Yu-Gi-Oh and Kaiba's curiosity—and Yugi's as well.

"I'll expect you to be gentle with these, as they aren't fully grown," said Hagrid as he pried of the crate of a lid. There were a few gasps as students took in the creatures.

It seemed to be a cat-sized serpent with two pairs of legs and one pair of batlike wings. It had two eyes like diamonds and white scales tinted with a hundred shades of blue. In the center of its forehead was a red oval. One could swear it was a…

"It's a dragon!" Kaiba cried, looking thrilled.

"Excellent!" said Hagrid, beaming. "Five points for Gryffindor. Now, this is the hybrid of an English and a Chinese dragon. It is the smallest dragon in the world, and its parent that is the English dragon must be the male—an English dragon can't give birth to the child of a Chinese one."

"What good is such a tiny dragon?" sneered Malfoy, and Yu-Gi-Oh had to grab Kaiba to stop him from electrocuting the smug bastard—not without regret, though, he just didn't want Yugi to kill him for letting one of his 'friends' get expelled on the first day.

"As a matter of fact, Malfoy, the dragon has several special qualities," Hagrid replied coolly. "Can anyone name any them?"

"Its scale, if boiled in a liquid, will make the liquid magical," Kaiba replied. "If it is a male dragon, three people can share on cup and be full for a month. If it is a female's, the drinker will not feel a speck fuller even if he or she drinks an ocean, but a milliliter will cure him or her of any disease except death."

"The drink is as searing hot as in the moment it was boiled and has a very distinctive taste," contributed Hermione. "Bitter for a male, sour for a female."

"If the fang is buried, it will create a deadly army that cannot die until the fang is dug up."

"A drop of its blood put a man to sleep for as long as he has lived, another drop will cure him, a third drop will drive him mad, and a fourth drop will kill him."

"Females have white scales each tinted with five shades of blue, males can have scales that are hundreds of shades, and no two scales are alike."

"Every dragon has a different jewel at the center of its forehead. If the jewel is removed or damaged, the dragon will die. The jewel will keep you safe from harm at all times. If you give it as a gift, you and the one you gave it to will both receive the protection. But if it is stolen then the owner and whoever gave it to them lose its protection, but it will not protect the one who stole it."

Kaiba and Hermione finally stopped, having ran out both of qualities and of breath. Hagrid was clearly ecstatic, and everybody but Malfoy and his gang (and a pissed-looking Yu-Gi-Oh, who had retreated to his soul room) seemed quite impressed.

"Fifty points for Gryffindor!" Hagrid crowed. "All of that is exactly right! Now, since these guys are so little, we're going to make a project out of raising them. It will take all year, but it will be well worth it."

A few Slytherins groaned, but everyone else seemed excited. Yugi's eyes were wide with interest. Kaiba looked absolutely elated.

"We don't have that many of them—they're pretty rare, so you'll have to get into groups of two. Maybe three."

Harry, Ron, and Hermione were grouped up—duh. Yugi grabbed Kaiba's arm before Yu-Gi-Oh could protest. _It'll be useful to be grouped with somebody who knows his stuff!_> he told his furious other half. Upon failing to calm him down, he said, _Fine. I'll be out all the time in this class. You don't have to raise any dragons_>

"We'll take this one," Kaiba said, selecting a female with what seemed to be a blue teardrop at its forehead. Yugi wasn't surprised—it had the coloring of a Blue-Eyes.

Made bold by the fact that a new kid had picked up a dragon and not died, others began choosing.

Parviti and Lavender selected a male that was maybe a thousand different shades of pink and purple, Neville and Dean went with Kaiba's example and picked a mostly-white female, Malfoy and his friends picked a male that was mostly black and different shades of gold and silver.

Harry and his friends also followed Kaiba's example, selecting a female that was more blue than white and had shades which ranged from cerulean to navy. It had a green isosceles triangle at his forehead.

"Right then!" said Hagrid. "Firs' thing we're gunnu do is get associated with 'em. Might want ta muzzle 'em first. They have a bit of a bite."

Kaiba refused the muzzle, saying flatly that he didn't need it. Malfoy said the same. Kaiba and Hagrid went around, helping everybody with their muzzles.

"Um…Hagrid?" asked Harry tentatively, after Kaiba had helped everybody with muzzling their dragon. "Is there anything that we might want to know about these things? Like, are they poisonous? Do they breathe fire, or something?"

"The males are poisonous, the females breathe lightnin'"—Kaiba couldn't help but smirk at Yugi's slight flinch. "But they don' do that for about five more months. The tail can make a nasty whip, but otherwise there isn't much to worry 'bout for now."

"Great," drawled Malfoy. "Then we've five months to live, I suppose."

"Oh, shut up," Ron replied.

"How big are they going to get?" asked Dean Thomas.

"'Bout the size of a dog, or a large cat. In a week or so, they'll shed their first skin. Anybody know what that's good for?" Everybody looked expectantly at either Kaiba or Hermione.

"Pain relief," Hermione said.

"Sleeping potions," Kaiba added.

"Five points for Gryffindor," said Hagrid, grinning. "Looks like we have two star pupils now, instead of just one. Do you like dragons?" he asked Kaiba.

"Yes. My wand even contains the heartstring of one. I have three of them back home."

"Isn't that illegal?" Parviti asked, and Kaiba shook his head while trying to coax her dragon into letting him put on the muzzle.

"Not where I'm from, no."

There was a sudden scream, and several people had to cover their mouths to keep from laughing—Malfoy should have let his dragon get muzzled. Or maybe it was the insults, or that stick. Either way, he would be needing a new thumb.

«§¥§»

Yu-Gi-Oh's fists were clenched. **Yugi, why can't you take over in this class like in Care of Magical Creatures? I _really_ don't want to be here! **

"I heard that," said Bakura's voice, very soft, but loud enough to gain everybody's attention. Yu-Gi-Oh for a moment thought Bakura had been speaking to him mentally, but he noticed some kids reacting.

The familiar white-haired thief king seemed to materialize from the shadows. Yu-Gi-Oh was surprised by how comfortable he seemed in a robe—then again, he had been Egyptian as well. It hid his attractive figure, but made him seem more mysterious. It also made his hair seem even paler in contrast.

"So, you're the next class," he said, still softly. Like Snape and McGonagall, he could get everybody's attention without having to raise his voice. His eyes scanned over each of them, and Yu-Gi-Oh felt a tickling in the back of his head. If he was searching his mind…

"Do you know what you're here to learn?"

Infuriated by the mere sound of that soft, alluring voice, Yu-Gi-Oh wondered if Bakura counted as a demon with glowing red eyes.

"Defense Against the Dark Arts, of course," said Seamus Finnigan.

Yu-Gi-Oh knew Bakura well enough to know that Bakura was about to roll his eyes but refrained. "Look, I'm sure every single person here has taken at least _one_ Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson before—"

"Oh, and what am I, a duck?" Yu-Gi-Oh demanded indignantly.

Ignoring him, Bakura said, "there are many things known as darkness. It exists within God. It existed within Jesus and Moses and Muhammad and Abraham and whoever else you may worship. It exists within saints. It exists within you. It exists within me."

"I'll say," Yu-Gi-Oh muttered.

"It waits for our weak moments and pounces, though more often than not you manage to survive with little more than a few scratches and perhaps a bruise or two."

His voice lowered, and it seemed to contain millenniums of dark wisdom—which, come to think of it, it did.

"But sometimes…sometimes it catches us, if only for a moment. And then…you get lost in yourself and control **nothing.** You go nowhere, yet your body may go on a nightly killing spree. You never move your lips, yet you may be loudly cursing out a politician at his campaign."

His eyes were haunted…and yes, dark.

"And when you wake up, you may be standing before the corpse of your best friend with a bloody butcher knife in your hand."

By now, all eyes were on him as he circled the room, still speaking.

"But I am not speaking of a darkness within yourself—the time may come that you must face it, but I will not be able to help you then."

It seemed as if even the walls were listening. Even Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, and Yu-Gi-Oh seemed to be completely alert—whether they liked it or not.

"I'm talking about malicious forces, hiding behind every rock. You may think you're safe, but you're not. When you least expect it, you may have to face the darkness of another. And when you do, I want you to be ready to **blow its freaking head off!"**

Most of the students jumped at least eight feet. One clumsy student accidentally blew up a desk. Bakura pointed a finger, muttered something, and the desk immediately fixed itself.

Straitening (and here Yu-Gi-Oh thought he couldn't stand any straighter) he addressed the class again. "Well, now that we've been introduced, let me make one thing clear—I won't take any nonsense. You don't want to behave? Fine. You don't have to behave, you don't have to learn, and you don't have to live. Everybody understand?"

Kids nodded. Even Malfoy seemed impressed. Only Yu-Gi-Oh still frowned. He did not appreciate being addressed as though he was a child!

"We'll start with the basics. Take out your wands—I don't usually use them, but they are good for channeling magic if you don't have a firm enough grip. I'll teach you a simple, but slightly difficult spell to protect you from most spells. Then I'll show you how to make an amulet against negative magic."


	4. Of Grudges and Dragons

"See?" asked George at lunch. He, Fred, and Lee walked over to where Ron, Hermione, Harry, Yu-Gi-Oh, Malik, and Kaiba were sitting.

"'Mazing, isn't he?" Lee asked.

Ron nodded enthusiastically. "I really don't see what you have against him," he told Yu-Gi-Oh. "I've never learned such incredible stuff, and he isn't a jerk either. He's the first _nice_ teacher I've ever met who could make Malfoy behave."

"Nothing nice about him," Yu-Gi-Oh retorted while Harry, Hermione, and Malik scowled and checked their schedules.

"I don't have him until Tuesday!" Hermione whined.

"How nice for you," Harry replied dryly. "I don't have him until Thursday."

"Same here," Malik confirmed with a frown. To Yu-Gi-Oh, he said, "You really have to let go of this grudge you have on the guy. I mean, who could be better at teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts than him?"

"Anyone!" Yu-Gi-Oh cried. "Anyone's better than him! He's evil, I tell you! **Evil!"**

"And you are too judgmental and hold grudges for too long," Kaiba snapped. "Even _I_ liked his class, and I never like anything!"

"You said you liked dragons," Hermione reminded him.

"_Like_ them?!" cried Yu-Gi-Oh, half-wanting to laugh. "He's **obsessed** with them! I wouldn't be surprised if he _is_ half-dragon!"

"Wouldn't surprise me, either," Malik agreed.

Ron, Hermione, Harry, Fred, George, and Lee all lifted their eyebrows at Malik and Yu-Gi-Oh—who, for their part, seemed completely serious.

"Do you really have three dragons at home?" Harry asked.

"He has more than three," Yu-Gi-Oh replied. "He just has three favorites, the others are sort of unimportant. Where we come form, lots of people own magical creatures, but the Blue-Eyes White Dragons are three of a kind. Well, they used to be _four_ of a kind—" here he glared at Kaiba, who shrugged innocently. "But the fourth one kind of got ripped to shreds."

"Most of us use them as weapons," Malik added. "We summon them through cards, just like they used to be summoned with blocks of stone three thousand five hundred or so years ago. Kaiba just has a special relationship with his dragons."

"Have any pictures?" Fred asked, and everybody except Yu-Gi-Oh and Malik looked at him with a mixture of hopeful and inquisitive expressions.

Kaiba took out his deck and showed them one of his Blue-Eyes. Everybody except, again, Yu-Gi-Oh and Malik (who had seen them before) leaned forward to admire it. Ron opened his mouth to ask why it didn't move, if it was magical, but at that moment—

"You can never resist showing off those dragons, can you?" asked Bakura from behind, making all of them jump. Even those facing the direction he had been coming from hadn't seen him coming.

Bakura let go of his cat. She and Hermione's cat Crookshanks started circling each other, before beginning to purr and pat each other with their paws.

Yu-Gi-Oh immediately jerked up and glared at him, but one of the twins came forward and started shaking his hand. "Hi! I'm Fred Weasly! Big fan!"

The other started shaking his other hand. "Actually, he's George and _I_'m Fred. He's just jealous of me because I got the brains and all he got was the got the looks!" Malik snickered and Ron rolled his eyes. "You _do_ remember us, don't you?"

"Of course I do. You're in my first period class. You and your friend Lee—" Lee beamed at the recognition. "Tried to put a gargantuan flesh-eating spider in my desk when you thought I wasn't there."

Kaiba pinched a snickering Yu-Gi-Oh not-at-all-gently on the shoulder and returned his glare twice over. Lee, Fred, and George actually had the decency to look embarrassed.

"Yeah, about that…" Fred muttered.

"It was…an accident?"

"No, it wasn't. But it was a surprisingly good try." They beamed at the apparent compliment. "My second period tried a frog. It seems they don't take kindly to Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers here." Then suddenly he smiled—and it was a particularly unpleasant smile, I might want to add. "They won't try that again."

"Excuse us," Yu-Gi-Oh said to the others, before dragging the taller man by the arm to somewhere no one would be able to hear them.

"What are you doing?" asked Bakura, and Yu-Gi-Oh blinked—for a moment the white-haired Spirit had sounded almost sincere.

Then he reminded himself who he was speaking to and growled, "Don't 'what are you doing' me, you bastard. You may have everybody else fooled but I **know** you. I know you're planning something, and I'm going to stop you whether you like it or not."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Bakura replied, but from the way his eyes hardened it seemed that he knew **exactly** what Yu-Gi-Oh was talking about: the former Pharaoh was sure of it.

"So what are you planning?" Yu-Gi-Oh sneered. "To gain the Items? Suck out the students' souls? Create your own little army?" He smirked at the swiftly growing anger in Bakura's eyes. "Well, what is it?"

"Listen, your Royal Pain-In-The-Ass Half-Porcupine **ex**-Highness! I know you can't accept it, but I _can_ do something without any ulterior motives—and I happen to _like_ being a teacher!"

"Do you really expect me to believe that?" Yu-Gi-Oh retorted. "I told you, I'm not as naïve as the others. I **know** you're up to something—I just need to figure out what it is!"

Bakura clenched his fists, battling the urge to turn Yu-Gi-Oh into something large and slimy and preferably without a mouth. At last, he hissed, "fifty points from Gryffindor! And I would give you a detention, too, but I don't want to spend any more time with you than possible!"

They strode back to the table. Bakura grabbed his cat and stalked off, Yu-Gi-Oh sat down with the familiar (to Kaiba) air of a particularly smug martyr.

"Now, why in the world did you go and do that?" Fred complained.

"Yeah," George added. "I liked him!"

Glaring at Yu-Gi-Oh as the twins and Lee trounced off to go prank somebody else, Kaiba hissed in Japanese, "Little your Royal Piss-Ass Highness! Leave him alone! Haven't you held this grudge long enough as it is?"

"No, I don't!" Yu-Gi-Oh replied hotly, also in Japanese. Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at them curiously. Malik quickly started asking about the school, using anything which came to mind—the teachers, the classes, the lessons, anything that would distract them.

"Well, you should!" Kaiba cried. "From what I can tell, Bakura _likes_ teaching—and besides, he's fucking _good_ at it! Why can't you just let him be? Just once in your eternal life, why can't you happy for somebody who isn't part of your precious little fanclub?"

"Because that somebody is **him!"** Yu-Gi-Oh replied as if it should have been obvious. "And when did people start taking **his** side, anyway?"

Kaiba stared hard at him, eyes glittering with rage just as his hands glittered with lightning. "I don't know," he replied, his voice almost a hiss. "But maybe we should have started a long time ago."

«§¥§»

_I need some_ _sleep  
I can't go on like_ _this  
I tried_ _counting_ _sheep  
But_ _there's one I always_ _miss _

"Malik, you were right!" said Ron happily as they entered the fifth-grade boys' dormitory. "I like Professor Isis much better than that old bat—she's creepy, but she _knows _things. She walked up to anybody who doubted her and started spouting out information no one else knew until they swore they were believers, just to make her stop! It's a lot funnier watching it than being the one she uses her powers on…by the way, why does she want to be called by her first name?"

Malik shrugged.

"Where have you been, anyway?" Yugi asked his friend. "You just went and disappeared on us? It looked like you were going to the Defense Against the Dark Arts class. Mou Hit—I was kind of upset."

Kaiba snorted loudly, and Yugi glared at him. "As a matter of fact, I was," Malik replied. "I was asking Ryou for homework help."

"And Bakura was all right with that?" Kaiba asked. To most, it would just seem that Kaiba was referring to him by his last name and Malik by his first—Malik knew better.

All of them except the ever-stubborn Yu-Gi-Oh had agreed to call the dark side 'Bakura' and the light side 'Ryou'—easy to remember, and no risk of people being suspicious that they were calling one person by two names because it was just the first and last name.

Yugi was still mad at Yu-Gi-Oh for not using it, since it was his fault they had to make that decision anyway—it was too much of a risk when Bakura started yelling at him in the mall ("My name is **Bakura!** Not Thief, not Tomb Robber, not Bandit King, not Scum, not Bastard, not Soul Stealer, and not any of your other cute little nicknames! _Bakura!_ **Bakura!!"­)**

"Surprisingly, yes," Malik replied without missing a beat. "He just wanted us to be as quick as possible because he had to plan tomorrow's lessons—and Ryou couldn't help me with my Defense Against the Dark Arts homework because he thought it was cheating."

"I don't really think he _could_ make the amulet Bakura assigned us if he wanted to," Yugi replied. "Where are we supposed to find quartz anyway? Professor Snape or Professor could have the herbs we need, and sharp objects could be lying around anyway, but quartz?"

Then he froze, realizing he had just said a teacher didn't know how to make the item he had taught the class to make—a small blue or purple velvet pouch with some protection runes stitched on it, filled with protection herbs and sharp objects and a chunk of quartz.

But Kaiba caught his mistake, too, and decided to come to the rescue—just this once. Rolling his eyes, he said "_Really,_ Yugi, hasn't this grudge gone on long enough?"

Yugi gave him a sharp look—he knew very well that it wasn't _him_ who had the grudge—but also a grateful smile. That little slip-up could have caused big trouble.

_Everyone says_ _I'm getting down too low  
Everyone says_ _I've just gotta let it go _

"What _do_ you have against Bakura anyway?" Ron asked. "Because he is a teacher, and we already **have** a teacher who hates one of our students"—

"Gee, thanks," Harry muttered.

"—and we don't need another," he finished. "Besides, he's so much cooler than so many of our other teachers. That was the best class all day!"

"Oh, rub it in, why don't you?" Harry snapped.

Ron looked hurt. "I'm not rubbing it in!" he protested, tucking a wisp of red hair behind his ear. "Bakura's a really nice teacher—and he made Malfoy behave!"

"I wish I could've seen that…" muttered Malik.

"I told you already," said Yu-Gi-Oh, popping up out of nowhere—well, the Puzzle, actually, but there's no time for mathematics. "There is absolutely **nothing** nice about that bastard! How many times do I have to say it for it to sink in?"

"You're lucky Hermione is a girl," Ron replied, not noticing the change—it actually wasn't as noticeable as the dub wants you to believe, unless you have magic as ancient as his and have actually _seen_ the change (this is pure speculation, I'm just assuming there's a reason no one without magic noticed the change unless Yugi actually told them about it, and it's true that in the manga his height doesn't change.)

"She would go nuts if she heard you cursing at a teacher. She does when I do."

"But Ron's right, what's wrong with him?" Harry replied. "Not many teachers would come over to a student's table just to say 'hi.'"

Yu-Gi-Oh suspected that it wasn't to say 'hi' so much as to make sure Kaiba didn't slip up and tell their secret, but he didn't say anything.

_Just gotta let it go_…  
_Just gotta let it go_…

"So, where did your sister get psychic powers?" Ron asked.

"She was born with it. She used to have a Necklace that let her _control_ when she saw the past or future, and show it to other people too, but she gave it away. Even when I was a little kid, she always knew so much it was creepy even to me. I have some telepathic powers, but I'm not really clairvoyant."

"Tele…Claire…What?"

"Clair-voyant. Clair meaning clear, voyant meaning seeing. It means you can see things other people can't, like the past or future. There are actually five 'clairs.' I know clairaudient—the same thing, but with hearing—but I don't know the rest. Can you believe there's psychic _smelling?"_

Ron boggled at him, astounded by how much he knew, but Harry replied, "That's _incredible._ What does telepathic mean?"

"You know, mind-reading and stuff. Though it's actually really, really complicated—mostly I just use it to communicate mentally, either with thoughts or feelings."

"Neat!" Ron cried. "Is it with, like, everybody in the entire world, or just people that you're close to?"

"An experienced person could do it with everybody, I can only do it with either someone I know very well or who has powers similar to mine. Me and Isis used to use it all the time, and I can use it with Bakura because he's really skilled telepathically—and clairvoyantly, and clairaudiently…I actually hear he used to live with ninety-nine ghosts!"

"Wouldn't surprise me," muttered Yu-Gi-Oh.

"Are the rest of you telep…tilipa…toliepith…whatever it is?" Ron asked. Malik covered his mouth to muffle his laughter.

"It's pronounced tell–eh–path-ik," Yu-Gi-Oh replied. "And I am a little, but I can only do it with people that I'm _really_ close to." MeaningYugi"I can also do it with Bakura and Malik"—_that sounded so wrong_—"but that's more their power than mine."

"Wow, Yugi," said Kaiba coolly, barely hiding a smirk. "Are you actually admitting you're not the best at something? I'm impressed."

For a moment, Yu-Gi-Oh seriously considered punching him. But Yugi insisted that he was **not **getting them expelled on the very first day of school, so instead he let Yugi take over again and resigned himself to sulking in the privacy of the Millennium Puzzle.

_I_ _need some sleep  
Time_ _to_ _put the_ _old horse down  
I'm in too deep  
And the wheels keep spinning 'round _

"And I'm **not** 'clair' or 'tele' anything and damn proud of it, too," Kaiba informed them. "I hate all this freakish psychic stuff."

"Because it scares you," Malik muttered, earning a glare. "What? It's true!"

"But that isn't really true, Kaiba," Yugi piped up. "You can see the past sometimes in your dreams, and you have a telepathic bond with your dragons."

"The dreams are of my past life," Kaiba protested, and Malik muttered something about how astounding it was that the pigheaded Kaiba actually admitted to having a past life. "The dragon thing is a technicality. They aren't human."

"Actually, the 'they-aren't-human' thing is a technicality," Malik informed him. "Telepathy with a mythical creature is the same as telepathy with a high-school kid. It's still telepathy."

"Well, in that case, I'm not 'clair' anything. Are you happy now?" that said, he sat on his bed and took out his books and homework assignments. Under his breath, he muttered something about this putting him behind in his business.

"Business?" Ron asked.

"He owns his own company," Yugi replied. "The vice-president is his little brother, and somehow I doubt Mokuba can run a company. And Mokuba's the only one he actually trusts—not that I can blame him, seeing as how so many people have tried to take over his company in the past."

"He owns his own company?!" Ron cried, drawing attention from other fifth-year boys. Harry's bottle-green eyes seemed bigger than his head.

"Yeah," Malik replied casually, as if it were the most normal thing on earth. "Kaiba corp. His stepfather owned it before him. It used to be for war machines, and stuff. Now it's for computers, games, things like that. He's actually making a game park for orphans right now, though this may set him back a bit."

"He must be a genius," said Ron. "Too bad, though. If he has his own companies, he can't work with dragons like my brother does."

Kaiba dropped his pencil. "Your brother works with dragons?"

Malik groaned. "_Please_ don't get him started," he moaned. Yugi would never say something like that, but from the look on his face and the words he muttered under his breath I suspect he agreed.

_Everyone says_ _I'm getting down too low  
Everyone says_ _I've just gotta let it go _

Kaiba scowled and stuck his tongue out at them.

"Oh, **that's** mature," said Yugi, sounding more disdainful than he had intended to. But, then again, he didn't want people to be able to tell the difference between him and Yu-Gi-Oh.

**"You're** one to talk," he retaliated immediately, focus already captured by his Potions Assignment ("List thirty-eight uses of toads in potions, as well as which parts of the toad are better for which purpose.")

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?"

"That you're short," replied Malik, as if he were saying 'you're a boy' or 'you're from Japan.' "What else is it supposed to mean?"

"Are toads related to dragons?" wondered Kaiba aloud, and Malik threw his arms in the air with a dramatic "I give up!"

"What? What did I say?"

_Just gotta let it go_…  
_Just gotta let it go_…  
_Just gotta let it go_…  
_Just gotta let it go_…


	5. Carrots and Cucumbers, Retards and Apolo...

Priestess Aishisu: Thanks again, reviewers! In this chapter, the love circle becomes more apparent—the circle being that Kaiba likes Bakura, Bakura likes Yu-Gi-Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh likes Malik, Malik likes Ryou, Ryou likes Yugi, Yugi likes Kaiba, Kaiba likes Bakura, Bakura likes Yu-Gi-Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh likes Malik, Malik likes Ryou—  
Kaiba, Bakura, Yu-Gi-Oh, Malik, Ryou, and Yugi: YOU'RE JUST DOING THE ENTIRE STUPID, RIDICULOUS, UNBELIEVABLE ATROCITY ALL OVER AGAIN!  
Priestess Aishisu: Oops…Anyway, some of these pairings probably won't end up very apparent. But some will. The Kaiba/Bakura pairing, at least, is made quite clear in this chapter. So is the Yu-Gi-Oh/Malik one. Also, I'm thinking of adding the pairings of Isis/Mariku and Akefia/Atemu (the ancient Egyptian version of Bakura/Yu-Gi-Oh).  
What do you think of those? One of my friends suggested Bakura/Kaiba, Yu-Gi-Oh/Akefia, Malik/Ryou, and Yugi/Isis. So now I'm changing it to three options, which unfortunately means previous votes are discounted unless it comes to a tie between one and two.

PS: Sorry I took so long to update, and to my friends, sorry had to cut out so many things I said I would right—look on my profile page and you'll understand why I was so busy. (I didn't even have time to add the thing with Snape and Bakura! That was _funny!) _

«§¥§»

"AAAAAAARRRGGHHHH!" shrieked Malik, flinging his arms in the air and flinging his homework onto the ground. "I give up! I give up I give up I give up I give—"

"SHUT UP!" yelled Yu-Gi-Oh, appearing seemingly out of nowhere.

"Hello, Yugi," said Kaiba frigidly, glancing up from his own homework, sapphire eyes narrowed. "Have you been torturing Bakura again? Or arguing? Or both? I do hope he punished you—you deserve it."

Yu-Gi-Oh growled under his breath. Then his voice rose, and he yelled for the entire dormitory to hear, "He took **twenty points** from Gryffindor! And he gave me a detention—with **Finch!"**

"And I suppose Yugi's going to have to take the detention," said Malik as he picked, making a point to sound as if he were speaking to himself—Ron and Harry were in the dormitory as well, along with some other boys who didn't know about the yamis and hikaris.

Yu-Gi-Oh drew himself up to his full height—which wasn't much. "Are you accusing _me_ of shirking my responsibilities? If I chicken out, it will show Bakura he's winning!"

"And so will driving Finch insane, killing him, burning him, or otherwise hurting him," said Kaiba. "So don't try to use magic, wit, or trickery to get out of this, either."

"I do not shirk!" said Yu-Gi-Oh, lifting his chin stubbornly. "I _never_ shirk!"

"This homework is too hard," muttered Malik. "Maybe Professor Ryou can help." (If speaking of both, they had decided on 'Professor Ryou,' since saying the full name would seem weird)

"Are you sure that's safe?" Kaiba asked with unusual tentativeness. He put his own homework down for a moment. "He's probably ready to go on a rampage right now, we shouldn't disturb him…"

"Why Kaiba," said Malik with a cool smirk. "Are you **scared?"**

Kaiba blanched. "Me? Scared? I am _not_ scared of—oh, no! You are **not** getting me this time! I am not as stupid as certain fern-head midgets I could mention!"

Yu-Gi-Oh's eyes narrowed and his fists clenched. "Don't. Make. Me. Hurt. You."

"I'd like to see you try," Kaiba retorted. "This is your fault anyway, you know. Bakura at least is _trying_ to stop being such an antagonist, whereas you're clearly determined to start World War III!"

"I am not!" Yu-Gi-Oh shouted. "In fact, I think **you** might be the one trying to start it, from the way you've been acting lately!" The two long-time rivals glared furiously at one another, not aware that by now the entire dormitory was staring at them.

It had been this way for months. Yu-Gi-Oh couldn't forgive, Bakura couldn't just sit by and let himself be insulted, and Kaiba couldn't stand his adversary being a jerk to one of his few friends.

Kaiba was the one who finally turned away. He had learned in the last year and a half—as well as in his memories of Egypt—that the ancient Pharaoh tended to deal with any sort of unhappiness either violently or childishly, and God help the poor soul that got in his way.

"I don't have time for this," he muttered, shaking his head and going back to his homework. "I have homework to do, and then I have to send another owl to Mokuba for more stock information."

"If you two are quite finished yet, I still need to go talk to Professor Ryou," said Malik, putting a hand on his hip and narrowing his lilac eyes with impatience.

"You might end up impaled on the wrong side of a knife," Kaiba reminded him.

"Do you take me for an imbecile? I know that I might." Malik threw back his silky blonde hair and smiled at Kaiba evilly. "And that's why **you're** coming with me!"

«§¥§»

The sight which greeted them was not a pleasant one by anyone's standards. Bakura, dressed in a wine-red robe (from what they could tell, he had at least twenty different robes) was running around flinging everything within his reach at the walls, cursing in four different languages (Egyptian, Japanese, English, and a language neither of them knew)

"Stubborn, mindless, spiky-haired little fuck!" he yelled, every word interjected by the sound of something smashing into a wall—then magically repairing itself and floating back to wherever it had been. "When I get my hands on him, I'll rip him to shreds!"

Malik cringed as an ink bottle smashed against the wall a few inches from his face. Black liquid splashed against the stone, a few drops hitting him. He yelped, wiping frantically at the stained fabric of his robe (though this was a bit silly, as it wasn't even visible)

Only then did Bakura notice them. He blinked, as if seeing them for the first time. "You?" he asked slowly, lowering the wine bottle he had been about to throw. "Wha…What are you doing here?"

"Umm…I think this is a bad time," said Malik nervously, backing out of Bakura's stone chambers. He looked more than ready to break into a run at the first possibility, but Kaiba grabbed him by the sleeve of his robe and pulled him back inside.

His eyes flickered from the empty bottle in Bakura's hand to the five or six bottles sitting on his desk, also empty. "Have you been drinking?" he asked sharply, but his usually-frigid sapphire eyes were unusually worried and almost warm.

"That's ridiculous," Bakura replied flatly, but his eyes shifted away from him. Kaiba glared hard at him until he finally admitted, "Maybe. A…A little. But I'm not drunk."

"You never get drunk," Kaiba pointed out, and Malik didn't even want to think about how he might be aware of that little fact. "But you might want to remember you're in a human body—a _teenage_ human body."

"You've drunk underage, too!" Bakura cried, and heaved a sigh. "Why is he so stubborn?" he asked, looking up at Kaiba with an almost-unbearable depth of sadness in his eyes. "If _I_ can forgive **him** for the slaughter of **my entire village,** can't he forgive me for things which are practically nonexistent compared to what I _could_ have done? To what others **have **done? I mean, I haven't even tried to **murder** the lightning-haired midget!"

"Well, let's see," said a familiar voice from the doorway, a voice which made all three of them jump. They turned to see Yu-Gi-Oh standing there, glaring at Bakura, and both Malik and Kaiba groaned inwardly at the look in his eyes. "You first sealed his soul into a game piece. Then you sealed his soul into his favorite card. **Then** you—"

"But those are all just little things!" Bakura argued, placing his hands on his white-clad hips.

"You would have destroyed his soul if I lost those games," snapped Yu-Gi-Oh, crossing his arms. "Stop trying to play innocent. It isn't a very befitting role for you, Thief."

"Bakura."

"Whatever."

"You must like to seal people's souls into things, don't you, Bakura?" asked Malik, who hadn't been aware of either of these occurrences. He seemed almost amused by his newfound knowledge.

Yu-Gi-Oh's eyes, blazing with barely-contained fury a moment before, grew cold enough to freeze the sun. "Which is all the more reason for me to **kill you right now."**

Kaiba's sapphire eyes narrowed, his eyes even colder than Yu-Gi-Oh's. Blue-white fire glittered around him. "Just try it, bastard. I'll kill **you** before I let you even lay a hand on him," he threatened, causing Bakura and Malik to lift their eyebrows.

"You wouldn't dare," Yu-Gi-Oh retorted, but there was an edge of uncertainty in his voice.

"Try me."

Malik glanced at Bakura and whispered in his ear, "Unless you **are** drunk, which knowing you I doubt is possible, I'm sure you've realized that Kaiba either wants to start World War III or is in love with you."

Bakura stared at him as if he had just said that Kaiba had green hair, or that he didn't like dragons, but then his eyes narrowed. Stepping forward, he laid a hand on Kaiba's shoulder.

"It's not that I don't appreciate the help," he informed Kaiba in an unusually gentle voice, especially for him, then turned to give Yu-Gi-Oh his fiercest glare. "I just don't need to be protected from the likes of **him."**

Yu-Gi-Oh snorted, but whirled around and left.

The lightning faded, but Kaiba was still gasping with rage. "That…that **asshole,"** he ground out. "That lousy, good-for-nothing, piece-of-camel-shit **asshole."**

Malik smirked at Bakura, sending him a mental _I told you,_ and asked, "Do we get any points for that? We should get at least…a hundred! All right, ninety. Eighty? Please say eighty!"

Bakura rolled his eyes, but the faintest wisp of a smile seemed to pass over the very edges of his mouth. "Fifty for scaring off the little bad wolf," he said to Kaiba. "Ten for…doing nothing," he said to Malik. "Oh, and by the way—tell Yu-Gi-Oh he got three detentions with Finch for being an asshole and gained twenty points for running away like a chicken."

Malik gave him a crisp salute which looked positively ridiculous for someone like him, his expression grave but his eyes dancing. "Yes, Professor. Captain. Generalissimo. Sir."

Kaiba snorted and grabbed Malik by the arm, dragging him to the door. "Come on, you shameless Kiss-Up," he sneered, though his voice and his expression was not unkind.

A smirk played across his lips. "I want to see his Royal High-Ass's face."

«§¥§»

"Why that…that…stupid, shameless, unjust, idiotic, bloodsucking, demonic little albino **monster!"** yelled Yu-Gi-Oh when he heard the news. "I swear to Ra, I'll **kill** him!"

He stormed to the door of the dormitory, not caring that every Gryffindor boy in their grade was staring at him. Eyes narrowing, Kaiba stormed forward and blocked his way. "You leave Bakura _alone!"_ he shouted, causing Malik to snicker for some inane reason known to no one but Malik (and me. And Bakura if he were there.)

Yu-Gi-Oh's eyes narrowed with a mixture of frustration and suspicion. "Since when did you care so much about that damn thief?" he demanded. "What are you, in _love_ with him or something?"

Malik hid a grin behind his paper at Kaiba's wide eyes and the faint-as-a-whisper blush which spread over his cheeks. "That has to be the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard," he retorted, stammering only slightly as his mouth tightened into an angry line. "Why would you think…?"

"Hasn't this conversation gone on long enough?" asked Malik, squashing his laughter as he walked up to stand next to Kaiba in the doorway. "Kaiba doesn't love anything except his company, dragons, and Mokuba. He just thinks you're being unfair to Bakura—and frankly I think so, too!"

Yu-Gi-Oh glanced from Kaiba to Malik, and for a moment it seemed as if he was going to hurt them. But then he seemed to falter, for the first time since they came to Hogwarts.

At last he turned around, muttered an angry, **"fine,"** and relinquished control to Yugi.

«§¥§»

"Hey, Kaiba?" Malik said.

"Yeah?"

"Did you manage to do your Transfiguration homework?" Every student in class was given an item and told to turn it into a certain vegetable. Malik had had to turn a carrot into a cucumber, Kaiba a rock into a radish, and so on. It had been an especially challenging assignment—not because of what was turned into what, vegetables were third-year magic, but because the students had to either research to find the right spells or make up their own.

**��**"Malik, has anybody ever taken the liberty to inform you what an utterly **lousy** wizard you happen to be?" Kaiba asked, pulling a radish out of his bag. Malik made an indignant noise at this rather warranted insult.

"Hey, it's not my fault we can't all be geniuses!" he cried. "I never had to change one vegetable to another back in Egypt, much less **three!** And that McGonagall person is scary! That time we were supposed to turn shoes into boxes, and I just brought some regular boxes, she said she would turn me into a cheetah if I ever tried to be one again! And apparently, house elves make great cheetah custard! What is a house elf anyway?"

"Problems?"

Kaiba, Malik, Yugi, Hermione, Ron, and Harry all jumped and whirled around. Yu-Gi-Oh tensed up when he realized it was Bakura, but the warning glance Kaiba gave him let him permit Yugi to remain in control.

"I can't turn this carrot into a cucumber," Malik replied, showing them to Bakura, who seemed to find this quite amusing.

"You can't turn a **carrot** into a **cucumber?"** he repeated incredulously, still snickering. "I could turn a **rock** into food by the time I was _thirteen,_ and you can't even turn food into food?"

"Are you insulting my cooking?"

"No, I'm just taking the liberty to inform you what an utterly **lousy** wizard you happen to be."

"So there!" said Kaiba triumphantly. Hermione, for her part, thought Bakura wasn't being a very encouraging teacher. Ron and Harry, for their part, were all the more convinced he was as cool as Lupin. Yu-Gi-Oh, for his part, thought Bakura and Kaiba were being arrogant jerks and that Malik wasn't stupid at all—his broccoli was barely greener than the cauliflower it used to be.

"I didn't know the spells!" Malik protested indignantly.

"Who needs spells?" Bakura asked. He took the carrot from Malik and twirled it around in his long slender fingers, then held it up. Jaws dropped, eyes widened, and even Yu-Gi-Oh was startled—the carrot was now a cucumber.

Bakura bit into it. "Mm. Delicious," he announced.

"Hey!" Malik cried. "That's mine!"

"You _want_ to be an abnormally large gold cat? No…you are one already. Still, I doubt cheetahs drive motorcycles—and that's really all that separates you from animals and transvestites…"

"You are being a horrible teacher," snarled Yu-Gi-Oh, no longer able to stop himself. Kaiba's eyes narrowed, as did Bakura's. They both opened their mouths at the same time, but Malik let out a dramatic cry and threw himself onto his knees.

Lifting his clasped hands in a gesture of supplication, he began screaming prayers in Egyptian, not caring who stared at him. Here are some rough translations (Bakura, Kaiba, and Yu-Gi-Oh knew the words so why shouldn't you? Not so say they _understood_ half his babbling, but I think they got the general gist of it):

"_Oh Ma'at, deliverer of justice, deliver justice  
Either end the arguments or end my life  
Because I can't take it anymore! _

_Same to you, Anubis  
And Osiris  
And Set and _ _Isis__ just in case _

_Thoth, bringer of wisdom  
Bring wisdom to these arguing morons  
Open their eyes to the light! _

_And while you're at it  
Help me get a good grade _

_Sehkmet, goddess of war  
You've had your fun  
Now make them shut up! _

_Oh Bast, luminous one  
Illuminate the path of truth  
And let the_—_" _

At this point, Kaiba decided to do them all a _huge _favor, and he smacked Malik over the head with his bag. Malik let out a strange sound between a yelp and a groan, and fell onto his back.

**"Thank** you," groaned Bakura, knuckling his throbbing forehead against a headache.

"You're welcome."

Raising his bag, Yu-Gi-Oh attempted to hit Kaiba, but succeeded in nothing except losing his footing. Stumbling forward a few steps, he dropped his bag and whirled around. "You're bastards, both of you," he said, and Hermione clapped her hand over her mouth, horrified that he would curse at a teacher. "You say **I'm** unfair to _Bakura,"_ he gritted out, glaring at Kaiba. "But _you're_ **always** making fun of Malik!"

"Don't be so melodramatic. Malik doesn't mind!" cried Kaiba. "Do you, Malik?" he asked, as the blonde Egyptian staggered unsteadily to his feet, looking ready to pass out at the next moment.

………………………………………………………………………

"Huh? What? Why does my head hurt?" moaned Malik.

Tiny images floated around his head—a spiky-haired falcon (a falcon is the symbol of Horus, and Pharaohs were considered to be Horus in his human guise) and a white snake (symbol of the thief) with a silvery dragon between them, the spiky-haired falcon and white snake tearing each other apart, the silvery dragon and white snake together, a green tiger pouncing on a gold cheetah with earrings, the white snake smashing things and crying, a cucumber, a carrot, a bolt of lightning striking the head of the gold cheetah…

"Look at him!" shouted Yu-Gi-Oh. "He's pathetic!"

………………………

"Hey!"

"You should really cut it out," agreed Hermione. "Bakura is a teacher, but you're still a student—you have no right to tease a kid because you're a genius and he isn't."

………

_"Hey!" _

"Yeah, some people are just slow," supplied Harry. "It's perfectly _natural."_

…

**"HEY!" **

"Yeah, it isn't his fault he's a retard!" Ron supplied.

**_"HEY!" _**

"Sorry, Malik," he muttered sheepishly.

"Yeah, sorry," said Harry.

"I apologize," agreed Hermione.

"Whatever," snapped Kaiba.

"You apologize to Malik right now!" shouted Yu-Gi-Oh, stamping his foot as hard as he could and glaring at Kaiba as fiercely as possible. Not an eyebrow for yards was not lifted curiously.

"No, really, it's al—" began Malik, but Yu-Gi-Oh cut him off rudely.

"Stay out of this, Malik." To Kaiba, he demanded, "Apologize."

"Not until you apologize to Bakura!" Kaiba retaliated. Yu-Gi-Oh froze and stared at him in disgust, clearly horrified at the thought that _he_ of all people should be made to apologize—and to Bakura!

"Well? Are you going to apologize or not?"

Bakura and Malik glanced at one another. Bakura, for his part, wanted nothing more than to be somewhere else. Malik seemed almost amused, though Bakura was sure that that, given the opportunity, he would relinquish control to his other half just as willingly as Bakura would—and his relationship with Mariku was **much** more strained than Bakura's was with Ryou: Malik even suspected Mariku of flirting with Isis.

Yu-Gi-Oh swallowed, but his throat still felt try. He tried to speak with his usual arrogant tone, but his words were a croak. "And what, exactly, should I be apologizing for?"

"Would you like me to make a list?" Kaiba sneered. "It would stretch from here to Egypt." Gripping him by the shoulders, he spun him around to face a rather flustered Bakura. "Go on," he said flatly. "Apologize."

Yu-Gi-Oh stared at Bakura. His lips worked, but no sound came out. His expression became one of desperation. At last, he disappeared, and Yugi blinked around in bewilderment. "What did he do?" he asked Kaiba in Japanese.

"Listen…I need to teach the next class. Bye." Bakura vanished.

"We should probably get to Transfiguration," agreed Kaiba, though his stance was tense and his nails digging into his palm. He, Yugi, Harry, Hermione, and Ron made their way to Mrs. McGonagall's class.

Malik followed them, shouting, "Hey! What about the cucumber?"


End file.
